TRUMP COMING TO FIRST AVE?
One industry site estimates that Trump’s hotel business overall may be down by almost 20 percent. Having tarnished his brand for lux hotels, Trump is turning his attention to new businesses. Seattle, with its boomerang economy, progressive culture and yuge concentration of billionaires, is an obvious target for his new venture, the “Trump Club.”.
There is a real problem of creating a traditional Trump Hotel or Resort in Seattle. Mr. Trump has enough money to buy even Lux property in Seattle, Guests here obviously can afford his usual $800/night fees. The problem is that event planners with friends back east know how Trump’s business elsewhere is suffering. Back in NY, home of the Trump Organization (TO), premier social event planner Beth Bernstein decided she had had enough with Donald Trump after his 2005 hot-mic boasts about groping women. Bernstein, the owner of SQN Events, removed photos of weddings she had thrown at a Trump hotel in Chicago from h
Trump Ladies are chosen for the elegance.
er website, wrote to Trump hotel staff to remove her from the list of “preferred vendors” and posted a sort of call to arms on her blog. The decay of the Trump Hotel as a name for the ultra rich and very famous is a serious problem.
The decay of the Trump Hotel as a name for the ultra rich and very famous is a serious problem especially in ohso progressive Seattle. A new image is needed because the Trump brand is driving away people who need respect, including charities. The Susan G. Komen Foundation is considering moving events from Trump’s properties, including the Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. The U.S. Golf Association faces pressure from protests to move the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open from a course owned by Trump, although no decisions have been made. It is hard to imagine a Trump hotel hosting a convention of Democratic women, the Masons’ conclave, or a sales meeting of the American Bible Association. Nor is it likely that Bill and Melinda Gates will wnat to rent a Trump Hotel Ballroom when their kids have their confirmation parties.
Now it is rumored that the TO has purchased Seattle First Avenue’s iconic “Lusty Lady” and will turn the porn theater into what Ivanka Trump calls an “upper scale burly club.” “Trump’s Lady” will take advantage of Trump’s new image as a sex magnate. While many customers, mostly wealthy, will no longer want the bad image of staying at a Trump hotel or be comfortable inviting friends to play a round at his golf courses , the market for burlesque with soft porn is especially true in a city like Seattle where gay clubs abound and pot is legal! Having all this and a Trump Club is a natural for Seattle’s boom town.
“The answer is to retain our focus on price and class but change the target market,” Ivanka Trump . Ivanka Trump, spokesperson for TO, said that “Trump’s Lady” is expected to become the cornerstone of a hotel built on the model of the old Playboy clubs. The Trump Organization is also negotiating with Seattle’s “Uncle Ike’s,” as high class marijuana shop, to have a pot boutique next door to Trump’s Lady. Ms. Trump explained that the effort was very much in the Playboy Club spirit. “The bunnies and the prices worked,”
Ms. Trump said. “But, we need to brings the Trump Clubs up to date, catering not just to the straight guys but to gay men and lesbians. What better place than Seattle?” A Washington Post columnist calculated that Trump’s new hotel might have to charge average rates of as much as $750 per night. He was wrong, on weeknights this fall, the hotel’s least pricey rooms will go for between $735 and $995 a night. The new model makes more sense. Ms. Trump said they expect to be able to have a cover charge of only $75 per set at the new “Trump’s Lady” where there are plans for “Trump Lasies” to dance to jazz performed by African Americans imported from New Orleans. The lovely daughter of the former Presidential candidate continued , “Add in beverage and small plates as well as the TO’s cut of tips to the Lady servers and that is real money. Of course many customers will also want to spend the night in the hotel where, aside from room rates, the hotel is expected to offer deluxe massage services s well as rent by the hour rates so even middle class client can brag that they spent a night in a Trump Club. “
Ever confident, her father denied his campaign has dimmed the gilded allure of his five-lettered name and has said, if anything, it has burnished the brand and boosted his business. In a statement, Amanda Miller, vice president of marketing at the Trump Organization, said: “The Trump brand remains incredibly strong and we are seeing tremendous success across business units.” Eric Danziger, CEO of Trump Hotels, a collection of more than dozen hotels, called the Foursquare data “manipulated” and “inconsequential,” and said it does not “provide an accurate representation of our performance.”
BACK STORY: (based on material from the AP, The Daily Beast, and
other sources)
The story actually beings before the Donald began his run for President. In 2011 the Trump Organization (TO) submitted the winning bid to lease and renovate the historic train staion in DC. At least one rival bidder expressed surprise regarding the terms of Trump’s offer. Trump proposed a lavish rehab estimated to cost at least $60 million more than other bidders. He also offered the government generous financial terms, under which the Trump Organization would pay annual rent of $3 million, plus a cut of any profits. In a protest filed with the General Services Administration, the government agency overseeing the project, lawyers for a competing development team noted that in order to make the hotel financially viable, Trump would have to charge some of the highest room rates in the city.
The Trump Organization had said the hotel would feature two high-end restaurants. Then Trump launched his presidential bid by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, and both restaurateurs backed out. Trump is now suing each of them. Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio, the owner of Craft and a number of other top restaurants, told Mother Jones that he was approached by the Trump Organization after Andrés and Zakarian backed out. But he quickly turned down the offer. Colicchio says he was put off by the way the Trumps had treated Andrés, a friend, and by the GOP candidate’s comments about immigrants. As a result, the hotel will open with no top-drawer destination restaurant. Instead, it will feature just one establishment: BLT Prime, a chain steakhouse that is not likely to be a major attraction for tourists or locals. The other planned restaurant space in the hotel has been turned into a conference room.
Perhaps worse for the Trump clan, there are signs that Donald Trump’s divisive political campaign is turning off consumers. Rates for rooms at Trump’s new D.C. hotel are being slashed as travelers weigh their options, and smartphone data suggest fewer people are visiting his properties compared to rival venues nearby.
“The current trajectory is very harmful to his businesses,” said Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University. “Right now his brands cater to the affluent, who are disproportionately turned off by his activities.”
That’s not clear, though, at Trump’s new hotel in Washington, which Trump has declared the “best” in the city. It appears to have gotten off to a slow start.
A room at the Trump International Hotel with a king size bed and a city view could have been yours any night of the week starting Nov. 14 for about $505 or $555, according to a check of the hotel’s website last week. By contrast, five major luxury competitors in the city generally charged more — sometimes hundreds of dollars more — or were sold out. For instance, the St. Regis only had rooms starting at $975 on Monday and Tuesday. The Four Seasons in Georgetown had no rooms available at any price for those days, and the Jefferson Hotel for those two days plus Wednesday.
A woman angry about Trump’s groping comments, and that his daughter still supports him, has created the hashtag “GrabYourWallet” on Twitter to boycott the Ivanka Trump Collection, which includes handbags, shoes, jewelry and clothes. On Monday alone it was viewed more than half a million times.
It’s difficult to know how any future loss of hotel bookings and weddings, charity galas and tournaments could hurt Trump, because his businesses are privately held. But he is vulnerable because so much rides on his name. Unlike his golf courses, in which he has heavily invested, many Trump hotels and residential towers are owned by others who pay him to place his name over the entrance and for marketing and management services — and could possibly cut him out someday.
That’s already being threatened at Trump Place in Manhattan. A petition to remove his name from the building, which he does not own, has gotten 328 names in a few days. One of the signers, Marjorie Jacobs, said the pressure has already led to new uniforms for doormen and other staff, ones that will no longer bear the Trump name.
“He’s disgusting, and people are embarrassed to say where they live,” she said.
Brand Keys, a research firm that polled 1,536 registered voters nationwide, said Trump’s comments about groping women has sent the premium you can charge for something bearing the Trump name down sharply.
“How consumers feel about the brand and whether or not they’re more or less likely to engage with it has been affected,” said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys. “People see a brand that had an image based on a glamorous lifestyle and a lot of money, and that is being been reevaluated by people.”
Foursquare, which tracks people’s locations via their smartphones, said share of foot traffic at Trump branded businesses is down since Trump started his run in June 2015. Prior to Trump’s presidential bid, foot traffic to his golf properties, hotels, resorts and other properties, both those owned by him and those just bearing his name, was steady year-over-year. According to its most recent data, share of foot traffic was down 19 percent in September, compared with 2014, before Trump announced his candidacy.
Not all the data point to a slowdown. Several big-name brands including NBC, Macy’s and others severed ties in July 2015 following Trump’s derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants, but there has been no similar high-profile exodus since.
And the home listing site Streeteasy compared prices for Trump-branded condos in 16 buildings in Manhattan to similar ones nearby and has found no evidence the brand has been damaged. In fact, Trump condos sold for 5.6 percent more in August than they did a year earlier, versus a drop for rivals.
Still, there’s evidence of a shift of Trump’s demographic base, from the affluent to the more aspirational middle class.
Will Johnson, an analyst at research firm BAV Consulting, which monitors brand perception for 3,500 brands, said that the Trump brand was “collapsing” among people with a household income of over $100,000 a year.
“He really has alienated the upper socioeconomic group and the data has consistently shown that he is down on pretty much all the metrics we measure,” Johnson said. “He’s low on trust and high on arrogance.”
On the other hand, his brand is resonating more among those who make less than $100,000 a year. During the first nine months of the year, among that group, there was a 21 percent rise in people who think Donald Trump “cares about customers” and a 14 percent increase in those who think he is a “visionary,” according to BAV.
“I think at some point, probably after he loses the election, that we’ll do a reevaluation of what the brand means and what the brand stands for,” Brand Key’s Passikoff said. “You can’t continue the kind of activities and have these revelations without significantly affecting how the people see the brand. The man and the brand are inseparable.”
Benjamin Galbraith FACEBBOK Stephen hold on a hot flying second here… could Trump possibly be as unaware of the Lusty Lady’s reputation and clientele as he is of his own political prospects? Does he not get that people avoid 1st Ave Seattle at all costs no matter how pricey the parking, food, and escorts become? He better lower his prices if his new business is trying to survive off of what drunk ferry commuters, lost tourists and Beltowners can afford! (THIS IS ANOTHER REAL ESTATE SCAM BY TRUMP INC.)
No cam. Look at the rate structure. Just right for Fits Ave!